November 2013

  • A good day

    A good day

    Jessica went over to her sister’s today to lend a hand with Christmas presents. (I plan on waiting until the last minute, especially since Jessica already “accidentally” found one of the presents from me and Namine).

  • Our Thanksgiving

    Our Thanksgiving

    Both Jessica and I are introverts. We are more comfortable with a small number of close friends, we don’t like parties or loud noise (for my part, except for music – but usually with headphones on or by myself in the car), and we treasure our alone-time. Namine exhibits many of the same qualities.

  • Namine walking at therapy

    Namine walking at therapy

    Since getting the okay from her cardiologist to resume physical therapy in her walker, Namine has continued to improve. She is up to walking for ten minutes in her walker, at two minute intervals with thirty-second breaks in between.

  • Familiarity breeds…

    Familiarity breeds…

    Contrary to how the saying goes, Namine has nothing close to contempt for her palatal prosthetic. Quite the opposite – she’s willing to put it in, and is doing quite well with the every-other-day plan prescribed by the speech pathologist.

  • Cleaning and independence

    Cleaning and independence

    We cleaned the apartment over the weekend. It’s been quite a while since we cleaned – heck, since we had time to clean – the apartment, but very nearly top to bottom, we did it. All three of us. Namine did her part, too.

  • MRSA, MRSA, go away

    MRSA, MRSA, go away

    Come again, some other… never. Yeah, let’s go with never. Namine’s pediatrician called us; the culture they took last week on her MRSA infection – or what was left of it – came back negative. This is great news, a step toward getting her taken off contact isolation status.

  • Recursion in a JSP

    I had to figure out how to iterate through a collection with potentially infinite children in a JSP, so I thought I’d make a protip for future reference. Turns out, it was actually pretty easy.

  • Trip to the mall

    Trip to the mall

    We have a prescription for Namine’s glasses. We get our glasses at the VisionWorks in the mall, so it made sense to get Namine’s there, too. We also just so happened to have one a free train ride, so we decided to make a day of it.

  • Namine in her boat

    I love Namine’s imagination.

  • Nightmare turtles

    Nightmare turtles

    Some days ago, Namine woke crying from a nightmare. I was still awake, fortunately, so I was able to rush in almost immediately.

  • Speech appointment

    Speech appointment

    We had an appointment today with the speech pathologist. (Yes, that one.) It went far better than I expected. In fact, we now have solid evidence that not only is Namine speaking better with the palatal prosthetic in, her speech is improved when she isn’t wearing it.

  • First day back since the Fontan

    It wasn’t Namine’s first time back to therapy since her most recent heart surgery, of course. But it was her first time walking. Not just doing more at home, climbing on things – although no one was more thrilled than her when she got the green light to climb again – but really, truly working…